Building or regional paging systems are known and are often installed throughout buildings, sometimes alone and sometimes in combination with monitoring systems such as fire control systems. Known paging systems provide facilities whereby an operator can select one or more regions, zones, offices, cubicles or the like in a building to transmit audio thereto. Some known paging systems also provide a voice answer back capability.
Where paging systems are associated with or integrated with fire alarm control systems, they can be used to inform individuals in various regions of a building or installation as to the nature and circumstances of emergency conditions. They can also be used to provide instructions as to evacuation or non-evacuation in the event of fire or other types of emergencies.
Known systems can be effective to provide local audio to selectable zones of one or more buildings. However, it may not always be possible to provide either the local personnel, who would normally be expected to operate the respective system or to provide the emergency information to such people for local broadcast. There is thus an ongoing need to be able to remotely access one or more paging systems, perhaps simultaneously, to be able to broadcast audio, in real time, from one or more common control units to remote zones via locally installed paging systems. It would be preferable if such communications could be implemented without having to install an additional communications system between the remote paging control center or centers and the destination of regional paging systems.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a known paging system 10 includes a local control unit or panel 12 which might be coupled to, or integrated with, the building fire alarm control system 14. The paging control system 12 is coupled via cables or wirelessly to a plurality of output transducers, such as speakers 16a . . . 16n in zone Z1, 18a . . . 18m in zone Z2 and so on. An operator can use an audio input transducer, a microphone or telephone 12-1, to transmit audio locally via the paging control system 12 throughout one or more of the zones Z1 . . . Zn or, if desired to only a portion of a zone or zones using selected output devices such as 16a or 18a. 
The system 10 can be used by first responders such as fire or emergency personnel to communicate with individuals throughout the building or facility on a real time basis in the event of emergency conditions.